Alex Petrovic? Brandon Manning? Caleb Jones? What are the Oilers going to do with all these d-men?

Game Day 41, Oilers vs Kings

With the acquisitions of Alex Petrovic and Brandon Manning, the emergence of Caleb Jones and the return to healthy of Kris Russell, the Edmonton Oilers blueline suddenly has a glut of players.

Of course, the real question isn’t what to do with all these players, but which of them can get the job done in the NHL, especially in a Top 4 role.

The absence of Russell and Oscar Klefbom helped the Oilers find some answers in this department, with Matt Benning failing to step up as a Top 4 d-man, Jones succeeding at winning over his coach Ken Hitchcock in the same role, and both Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson struggling somewhat to step in where Klefbom had left off as the No. 1 d-man on the team.

The Oilers depth chart on defence now looks something like this, with Klefbom as the No. 1 man when he gets back, but Caleb Jones taking his spot beside Larsson until then, with Nurse and Russell on the second pairing and Manning and Petrovic on the third pairing and Benning and Kevin Gravel in the pressbox.

Manning isn’t off to a great start with the Oilers. He’s made major mistakes on several Grade A chances against in his two games here, so Gravel could slide in ahead of him with Petrovic on a future third pairing. Of course, whatever happens room will have to be made for Jones, either in the Top 4 or bottom pairing. Based on his strong play so far, Jones could push out Russell from the Top 4 and he will certainly be first choice for the bottom-pairing assignment.

Heading into next season, I’m not expecting a bounceback of Andrej Sekera, so the group would essentially remain the same, but with Evan Bouchard likely taking over from Petrovic on the third pairing and Petrovic departing as a UFA.

Bouchard was close to making the team this year. If he does so as expected next year, Matt Benning’s spot will also be iffy, though it’s not clear if Edmonton can move out Benning, who has one year left on his $1.9 million per deal. The same goes for Brandon Manning, with one year left on a $2.2 million per contract, which might be tough to move. Benning is a right shot d-man so I suspect he does have some trade value. He’s been inconsistent as an Oiler, often good, often average, often mediocre. He’s not a bad bet for some NHL team, even if he’s trending down right now, mainly because he’s having trouble making good decisions with the puck and firing off too many errant break out passes.

If this plays out as expected, the Oilers will have a cheap third-pairing of Jones and Bouchard on their Entry Level Contracts, but an expensive pair of pressbox d-men in Benning and Manning for next year, with the even more expensive Sekera somewhere in the background and possibly in the mix. If Bouchard hits all his performance bonus money, he’d get an additional $500,000.

It all makes for a somewhat tricky cap situation for paying these defenders and it makes me question how much the Oilers needed Manning, who does not appear to be a better player than Gravel, though we’ll all need a longer look to evaluate Manning.

Of course, the Oil moved out defensively weak winger Drake Caggiula, who has another year at $1.5 million on his deal, to get Manning.

The Oilers likely calculate they can get at least as much from AHL wingers Tyler Benson, Cooper Marody, Kailer Yamamoto and/or Cameron Hebig as they got from Caggiula — and all those players cost less against the cap than Caggiula.

On defence in terms of the cap, the Oilers are saved to some extent by the value contracts for Klefbom and Larsson, the reasonable contract for Russell (at least if he keeps performing as a Top 4 d-man), Nurse being in his RFA years and Bouchard and Jones being on their ELCs.

Today’s game.

To make the playoffs, a team needs to at least be real. 500, as many wins as losses. So far the Oilers have 19 wins and 21 losses (three of the losses in extra time situations). They are four points behind Anaheim for the final Wildcard spot, with two games in hand.

Jesse Puljujarvi has played 535 even strength minutes with Milan Lucic and 624 without him the last two seasons, but I’m not a fan of this line grouping. They don’t move at the same speed. Puljujarvi does his best work with other fast players.

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